NEPA's Times-Shamrock Sells Assets To Hedge Firm

Times-Shamrock Communications sold its newspaper group, including The Times-Tribune in Scranton, to publishing giant MediaNews Group effective Thursday, CEO Jim Lewandowski announced.

The sale, revealed during an all-staff Zoom meeting, includes the company's four daily newspapers — The Times-Tribune, The Citizens' Voice, the Republican Herald and The Standard-Speaker — as well as its weekly and periodic newspapers, commercial printing operations, Absolute Distribution Inc. and Times-Shamrock Creative Services.  Included in the sale is the real estate for the printing operation in Scott Township and where publications are based in Hazleton, Tunkhannock and Wilkes-Barre.

It does not include Times-Shamrock's radio or billboard operations, or the Scranton Times Building downtown.

The decision to sell the newspaper group was made by a majority of Times-Shamrock's four voting shareholders, but was not unanimous, publisher emeritus George V. Lynett said. He declined to disclose the sale price, but expressed his immediate family's disappointment.

Colorado-based MediaNews Group is owned by Alden Global Capital, a investment firm with extensive newspaper holdings.The hedge fund has been criticized for gutting newsrooms. 

"I wish the new owners well, but it is a very sad day for my family and me," George V. Lynett said.  He made those remarks on behalf of himself and his children, George V. Lynett Jr., Sheila Stallman, Jimmy Lynett and Sharon Lynett.

Times-Shamrock's nine-member board of directors voted unanimously to recommend the sale to the four voting shareholders, the majority of whom approved it, board chairman Bill Goodspeed said. Those shareholders are George V. Lynett, William R. Lynett, Cecelia Lynett Haggerty and Edward J. Lynett Jr. George V. Lynett opposed the sale.

Goodspeed called the decision "difficult for a lot of people," noting numerous headwinds facing the industry, including declining readership and circulation and advertising revenue.

The former owners and the board felt somebody else would be better at keeping the newspaper assets "healthy and going," Goodspeed said. "As a result, there was not only financial motivation for the sale, but also psychological and emotional motivation."

MediaNews Group is offering employment "to virtually all of the employees, except for a few crossover team members who serve both print and radio, with whom we will be speaking to directly," a document provided to employees notes. It's not clear how many employees won't be offered employment.

The new owners agreed to recognize the unions representing former Times-Shamrock employees.

In April, Times-Shamrock no longer offered a print edition of its newspapers on Mondays, instead releasing a digital version on that one day of the week. The decision was based on rising costs and changing demand from younger readers for electronic publications. In 2021,  the Times-Tribune turned over delivery of the daily paper to the postal service while it looked for new carriers in some locations.

The family that started Times-Shamrock—the Lynetts—have been producing newspapers since 1895 in Scranton. The sale marks the end of local control for the papers, a rarity in the newspaper business in recent years.

The current paper is the result of a 2005 merger between the afternoon Scranton Times and morning Scranton Tribune. The Times was founded in 1870. It struggled under six owners before E. J. Lynett bought the paper in 1895. Within 20 years, the Times was the dominant newspaper in northeastern Pennsylvania, and the third-largest in the state (behind only the Philadelphia Inquirer and the Pittsburgh Press). In January 1923, Lynett founded one of Scranton's first radio station, WQAN. The Lynett family still owns the station today under the calls WEJL, which currently airs ESPN Radio.

 

Members of the family issued a statement about their view of the sale:

Newspapers have been our family business for nearly 128 years. Since 1895, we have had the privilege of serving this community with local news, events and happenings. Today marks a very sad end to that legacy. Our family would like to express our gratitude to the loyal employees, readers and advertisers who have been with us all these years.

We feel it is important to express our personal dissatisfaction with the sale of Times-Shamrock newspapers to MediaNews Group, a subsidiary of Alden Capital. This was a transaction that we do not support or endorse. Alden does not reflect the business principles we feel are consistent with the stewardship of any newspaper.

The sale was driven by a majority of our shareholders. We understand the fears about our ability to remain competitive. We recognize the underlying concerns about the newspaper industry’s revenue and audience declines, and the desire of many of the shareholders to leave the painful decisions to cut costs, coverage and employees in someone else’s hands. 

We remained confident and hopeful that our current Board of Directors and management team would have been able to lead us through the industry’s headwinds more effectively and humanely than a hedge fund like Alden.

The willingness to sell a company steeped in integrity and family tradition - and staffed by loyal, bright, compassionate employees - to a company with such a devastating reputation in the industry runs against everything we believe in. We are concerned for our employees, our communities and our family legacy.

Newspapers are a tough business. That’s undeniable. But a newspaper is much more than just a business. It is the only business explicitly protected by the Constitution. It is a local institution and expected to track government spending, keep an eye on politicians, advocate for the voiceless, ask tough questions, cover local sports and businesses, and record the milestones in readers’ lives.

Newspapers provide the “first draft of history” as the local historical record. They are the only true local watchdog with a large newsroom and resources capable of providing in-depth, verified news and investigative reporting on a large scale in any community.

Most family newspaper sale announcements bear some variation of stock language regarding the new owner's ability to "assume the families' stewardship," "continue to provide strong local reporting," and "maintain the legacy" of the selling family. Sadly, we feel that none of that will be true in our case.

For four generations, members of our family dedicated their careers to the idea of a free and independent press that would ceaselessly endeavor to improve the community. As a newspaper family and stewards of reliable news, we have heavy hearts ending that legacy and will forever cherish the countless community of dedicated employees who worked alongside us and our family for generations.